Medical Matters: The 2014 "Paying Till It Hurts" Series in The New York Times

Medical Matters has returned! The popular "program about health care and the human condition" -- created here at Public Radio Tulsa by host John Schumann and editor/producer Scott Gregory -- began a four-episode limited series on Thursday, September 10th.

You can hear a free mp3 stream of that first show (from 9/10/15) at the audio link below; subsequent shows will air at noon on KWGS 89.5 FM on 9/17, 9/24, and 10/1. And please note that each of our Thursday-at-noon shows will then be re-aired the following day, Friday, at 8pm.

For Show # 1 in our third season, we listened back to a conversation that we had about about a year ago with journalist Elisabeth Rosenthal of The New York Times. She wrote the "Paying Till It Hurts" series of articles that ran in The Times last year. This series looked at health care costs from many different perspectives; Rosenthal is now converting the series into a book.

Also on our program, we spoke with Gary Schwitzer (founder and editor of HealthNewsReview.org) for a consideration of recent trends and transgressions in medical journalism, and Shara Yurkiewicz read her personal essay, "Post-Operative Check," which went viral after it appeared on a NPR health & science blog.

Stigma from illness keeps sufferers in the dark, where they’re ashamed to give voice to their afflictions out of fear and embarrassment. Dr. Anne Hallward, a psychiatrist in Maine, is giving voice to those living in the shadows and talks to host John Henning Schumann about her work.

Gary Schwitzer of HealthNewsReview.org reviews the week's health news, and medical humanist Alice Dreger shares a meditation on using data to guide her own health care.

On this edition of Medical Matters, Dr. John La Puma, also known as “Chef MD”, shares how it is that what we eat has such a huge impact on our physical and emotional well-being. Chef MD short videos are seen on PBS and "REFUEL," a nutrition guide aimed specifically at men, is Dr. La Puma's latest book.

What exactly is palliative care, and to what degree does it differ from hospice? And why have more and more hospitals around the nation started offering palliative care programs, especially over the past decade or so? On this edition of StudioTulsa on Health, we present an engaging discussion with Dr. John Hendrix, the newly named Medical Director of Palliative Care and Hospice Services at St. John Medical Center here in Tulsa. Interestingly, Dr.

On this installment of ST on Health, we speak with Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, a professor at Dartmouth Medical School and nationally recognized expert on the effects of medical testing. His past books include the widely acclaimed "Overdiagnosed." Dr. Welch joins us to talk about his new book, "Less Medicine, More Health: 7 Assumptions That Drive Too Much Medical Care." It's a volume that offers, in the words of Kirkus, "a bright, lively discussion of the excesses of medical care to which patients often unwittingly go due to certain false assumptions....